The common practice of collecting data by flipper-banding penguins is …

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Many research groups use penguins, one of the top predators in the Southern Oceans, as ecological indicators. For ease of identification and data collection, researchers often attach flipper-bands on penguins, a practice that dates back to Antarctic expeditions of the early 1900s. Over the last century, scientists have collected considerable amounts of data from flipper-banded penguins, which has greatly influenced our understanding of the effects of climate change in marine ecosystems. Sadly, that data might not be reliable. A paper in a recent issue of Nature reveals that flipper-banded penguins live quite differently than unbanded birds.

This news is not exactly shocking, as ornithologists have been calling for an end to banding for over a decade. Short- to medium- length studies on the effects of flipper-banding have shown that banded birds had poorer survival rates. In a five year study published in a 2004 issue of Proceedings of Royal Society Biological Sciences, Michel Gauthier-Clerc and his group reported that flipper-banded king penguins had “later arrival at the colony for courtship in some years, lower breeding probability and lower chick production.“ Similarly, Katie Dugger and her colleagues reported in a 2006 paper in the Auk that flipper-banded penguins saw yearly survival drop by 11-13 percent over a three-year period.

However, there are also studies that indicate that the dangers of banding are limited. In particular, many groups report that banding’s negative effects are only significant in freshly banded birds. In the Dugger paper mentioned above, the authors found that, over a seven-year period, there was high annual variability in survival for banded birds, including years of high survival. Likewise, in 2009, Pamela Fallow and her colleagues wrote in the Journal of Wildlife Management that “long-term banded penguins did not exhibit differences to their unbanded counterparts in most variables examined.”

While researchers like Fallow may not support the banding practice, their data showed that certain differences between banded and unbanded penguins evened out after the initial period. Some researchers, like Christophe Barbraud and Henri Weimerskirch, dealt with the ambiguity by continuing to use banding, but excluded data collected in the initial years in their Nature 2001 paper.

The latest Nature paper challenges that practice, as the authors demonstrate in a long-term study that flipper-banding significantly alters the life of a penguin. Claire Saraux, the lead author, and her team used subcutaneous electronic tags to track 100 king penguins. They attached metal flipper-bands on 50 of those penguins. Over 10 years of observation, they found that banding influenced survival and breeding rates, which would skew data collection.

In terms of survival, banded penguins had a 16 percent lower rate over the entire 10 years, but there is a breakpoint at 4.5 years. In the first 4.5 years, banded penguins actually had a 30 percent higher mortality rate. After that, the difference in mortality between banded and unbanded birds levels off. The authors propose that flipper-banding acts as an artificial selector for the strongest penguins, creating a bias in data collected from banded birds.

Over the decade, banded birds were less successful in breeding. Banded penguins produced a total of 47 chicks, while unbanded penguins had 80 chicks. The authors observed that banded birds took longer to arrive at breeding grounds, which can account for the difference in their success.

The authors also found a possible reason for why some previous research groups observed negligible survival differences between banded and unbanded penguins after the initial year. In their own decade-long study, there was a three-year period where the environment was exceptionally favorable for penguins. During that time, unbanded and banded penguins displayed insignificant differences. The conditions were so good that penguins might have been able to compensate from the disadvantage of having a flipper-band.

Saraux and her colleagues have cast even more doubt on the practice of flipper-banding penguins. The behavior of banded penguins could very well be a reflection of a metal accessory that potentially injures flipper tissue and impedes swimming, rather than environmental changes.

On top of that, banding could be exceptionally harmful for vulnerable birds like those recovering from oil spills. After an oil spill off Cape Town in June 2000, roughly 20,000 African penguins were rehabilitated and ﬂipper-banded before being released. Those penguins might have done better without the added burden of a flipper-band. Since there are alternatives to flipper-banding, it could be worthwhile to invest in newer techniques for the sake of obtaining more reliable data and avoiding damage to wildlife.

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Yun Xie
Yun Xie / Yun Xie is a contributing science writer at Ars, where she covers the latest advancements in science and technology for Ars. She currently works in scientific communications, policy, and review. Emailreenxie@gmail.com//Twitter@yun_xie

29 Reader Comments

This is just another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. The act of observing, and changing the observed for the purpose of data collection, changes their natural behaviors resulting in unnatural actions and by association the resulting data is skewed.

The other penguins shun the banded penguins due to their lack of coolness, like humans with cell-phone holders on their belts.

Don't worry, one day even beltless hipsters will be able to reproduce normally.

Re: the article: no duh. You're adding something to them that, aside from anything else, is going to really skew with their socialization. Any hunter \could have told them that would happen; we see it a lot with game.

Deer with (say) tagged ears, or other artficial markings, get treated differently because to another deer that tag is a flaw on the ear. Even deer that are imported from a different area (say, to balance population) tend to not manage as well as the locals until a few generations have gone by and the 'new' markings are normal.

I'd always been curious if this type of animal banding was ever tested to see if there was an effect of the banding itself, interesting (albeit somewhat sad) to read. Are there theories as to why the banded penguins do worse? Increased drag in the water? Social reaction of other penguins to the appearance? Discomfort/annoyance/injury due to the band itself? Attracting predators?

I'd always been curious if this type of animal banding was ever tested to see if there was an effect of the banding itself, interesting (albeit somewhat sad) to read. Are there theories as to why the banded penguins do worse? Increased drag in the water? Social reaction of other penguins to the appearance? Discomfort/annoyance/injury due to the band itself? Attracting predators?

Well they consistently arrive later at the breeding grounds, so I'd think drag or injury (or both).

Skeewing data may not be so bad if you're looking for relative changes over the years which, I believe, is the case here.

That was my first thought, but the paper noted that there was negligible difference between unbanded and banded penguins during good years. This would mean that changes observed in banded penguins from good years to bad years would be exaggerated compared to the population as a whole.

I'm sure that researchers have considered using microchips as an alternative to banding, since both techniques are used by aviculturists. I wonder what the downsides are to switching from bulky bands as shown in the picture above to microchips?

I'm sure that researchers have considered using microchips as an alternative to banding, since both techniques are used by aviculturists. I wonder what the downsides are to switching from bulky bands as shown in the picture above to microchips?

The microchip technology is already in use. It is just more expense than the bands. From the article:

Quote:

her team used subcutaneous electronic tags to track 100 king penguins. They attached metal flipper-bands on 50 of those penguins.

I've wondered about that for a long time. Every time I saw anything on banding any animal, I pictured living as a hunter-gatherer, and figured dragging around a metal band just had to be bad for your odds.

When I was in Hawaii last year we saw researchers gluing radio transmitters to the back of sea turtles. It did not look like a convenient thing to be toting around. I'd like to give the researchers the benefit of the doubt, since they are after all working to increase the population of sea turtles, but the question of whether the transmitter hurt the turtles was raised several times just in the short time I was watching.

When I was in Hawaii last year we saw researchers gluing radio transmitters to the back of sea turtles. It did not look like a convenient thing to be toting around. I'd like to give the researchers the benefit of the doubt, since they are after all working to increase the population of sea turtles, but the question of whether the transmitter hurt the turtles was raised several times just in the short time I was watching.

Hmmm, I wonder if those "implants" aliens have been leaving in the human species has affected our survival?

When I was in Hawaii last year we saw researchers gluing radio transmitters to the back of sea turtles. It did not look like a convenient thing to be toting around. I'd like to give the researchers the benefit of the doubt, since they are after all working to increase the population of sea turtles, but the question of whether the transmitter hurt the turtles was raised several times just in the short time I was watching.

I could be wrong, but I don't think those sea turtles have natural predators as adults, so the only impact I could see would be increased likelihood of being caught in fishnets and, as in the penguins, reduced chances of mating due to being slow to breeding grounds. I think.

Who's the fucking genius that thought that attaching a bulky metal thingy to one of nature's most streamlined animal was a good idea?

Luckily, researcher that attach satellite tags to tuna fish (probably the most streamlined marine animal) are not that stupid: they use tiny ones, streamlined ones, or they implant the tag internally (with just the antenna going out, like a RC tuna ).

We all know this study was funded by the microchip consortium. Along with IPv6 and RFID, this is part of the plot to chip and track every baby, beast, and bird. If the masses get used to chipped penguins, it will be one more step toward desensitizing people to the notion of being chipped.

We found that flipper-banding had immediate negative effects on penguins and concluded that alternative marking techniques should be considered- we DID NOT condone banding.

Our paper actually supports the work by Saraux et al. (2011) but they have MISCITED us on two occasions.

1. We are cited us for suggesting that effects of banding are, "restricted to the first year after banding".

What we ACTUALLY wrote: "it seems that the presence of a flipper band on little penguins reduces survival after banding, particularly in the first year."

2. We are accused of making the "assumption that birds will ultimately adapt to being banded".

What we ACTUALLY wrote: “Over several years, birds may have become accustomed to changes in their hydrodynamics caused by the band so that their performance became similar to that of unimpaired birds. In this context, it is IMPORTANT to note that the banded birds were older than the unbanded birds and may have been, therefore, more experienced foragers as well as generally fitter individuals. The older banded birds could have represented individuals that were able to overcome the burden of carrying a band. As mortality due to the presence of a band is higher in young individuals (Gauthier-Clerc et al. 2004), birds that could not cope with their bands may have been removed from the population. This implies that any long-term effects of banding may be difficult to detect if only the fitter banded birds survive to an older age.”

The banded birds in our study were already 5 years old, too late to detect effects of banding, so although the banded birds displayed similar behaviour we suggested age confounded the results.

Further to my last comment,the study by Saraux et al. (2011) actually supports the very line they are refuting:

As the birds we studied were on average 5 years old we suggested that, "Over several years, birds may have become accustomed to changes in their hydrodynamics caused by the band so that their performance became similar to that of unimpaired birds".

Figure 1b in Saraux et al. (2011) shows that, “Differences between banded and non-banded birds tended to disappear after the first 4.5 years”.

We concluded the paper by saying, "we recommend that alternative marking techniques be evaluatedwherever possible." Does this sound like support for banding?